It was truly inspiring to participate in this multidisciplinary workshop and present the recent findings of REACT on measuring surface forces between reactive mineral surfaces!
The extraordinary mechanical properties of Portland cement are achieved only a few days after contacting calcium silicate mineral grains with water. Recent advances have shown that this robust cohesion can be linked to the high surface charge of the hydrating cement grains and the strong confinement of these mineral surfaces. It was a pleasure to present how our measurements explore the aspect of confinement during the mineral transformation, observed in situ in the surface force apparatus. We are looking forward to more experiments planned in REACT on this topic.
